


Mighty Real

by robotsdance



Category: Will & Grace
Genre: M/M, Trans Male Character, trans man grace adler - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-06 09:26:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17342777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robotsdance/pseuds/robotsdance
Summary: Grace comes out as trans. Karen jokes about him finally morphing into the man of Will’s dreams at least twice a week and Will is determined not to acknowledge any truth in that statement whatsoever.





	Mighty Real

“Wow,” Will said, “I did not see this coming.”

Grace was so freaked out that he— Will may as well get used to the new pronoun now— was trembling against Will’s hands, “I’m sorry. I just.”

Tears were coming now and Will pulled him more firmly into a hug, “What are you sorry for? I think it’s great! You know I’ll always support whatever makes you happy…” There was a pause where his name would usually fall and Will held that space for a moment before he asked, “Have you picked a name yet?”

Will’s best friend in the whole world shook his head back and forth against his chest.

“That’s okay,” Will said softly, brushing his hair out of the way so he could kiss the top of his forehead, “You’re trans. Figuring that out is a huge step! We’ll figure the rest out as we go.”

—

A few days later he settled on the name James. It suited him.

And Will loved the way James grinned every time Will used his name.

—

“I knew we’d turn you gay eventually!” Jack joked, a delighted smile spreading across his face, “Now where do we start? Binder? Haircut? Wardrobe? Gay bar? Support group? Have you found a doctor to talk about hormones yet? Or surgery? Or have you even decided if you want either yet?! Oh my god! Your name! Do you have a name?!”

He nodded, “James.”

“James!” Jack said, obviously verklempt, before he calmed, suddenly serious as he formally held out his hand, “Pleased to meet you James Adler.”

As Will watched Jack and James shake hands Will remembered (with a rush of admiration and gratitude) why Jack was the person in Will’s life who took his hand and helped him out of the closet and showed him how to live his life truthfully. And the following day when Jack was beyond excited to take James shopping for some new clothes Will handed over his credit card without even bothering to tell Jack not to buy something for himself as well.

—

Every transphobic comment or joke Will heard in the week that followed set his teeth on edge and made the knot in his stomach tighten because he’d said similar or worse a hundred times over and he hated hated HATED that it took having a trans best friend for him to realize how hurtful they were.

He got off the elevator and fumbled with his keys trying to unlock the door to their apartment, the laughter of the two people on the elevator giggling about trans people (for the record, not the term they were using) ringing in his ears. He was furious that he hadn’t found the way to call out their transphobic bullshit when it had been the moment to do so. Instead he had spent the duration of the elevator ride paralyzed by anger and shame, of which both feelings were only amplifying as he replayed the encounter in his head.

When he managed to unlock the door, he paced around the apartment for the better part of ten minutes trying to calm down before James got home, determined to not make this James’ problem, even ducking into his room when he heard James getting off the elevator to buy himself a few more minutes.

But in the end it didn’t matter, because Will was so ashamed that James had to ask what’s wrong four times, followed by a snippy “Fine, don’t tell me” (which Will knew he deserved) before it came spilling out of Will in a messy rush, “I’m sorry I used to say so many transphobic things! I’m sorry and I hate that it took you coming out for me to see how awful I was. And please don’t forgive me. Just know that I will never say anything like that again and I’m going to say something when other people do.”

James nodded once, a hint of an affectionate smile on his face, “Good.”

—

James stopped to check his reflection in the mirror before reaching for his coat.

“You look good,” Will offered truthfully.

“Yeah?” James said, still looking at himself.

Will nodded, standing up and coming to join him in front of the mirror, “You look like you. It’s nice.”

James smiled, running his hand through his short hair and then up and down over his flattened chest, “This binder really works huh? Not that it had a lot to do… but still.” He ran his hands down his chest again, “I like it.”

—

Going into the same change room at the gym was weird at first, not because they hadn’t changed near each other about a thousand times, but because they’d never done so in a room in a public place with a stick figure of a man on the door, and it was surprising how big a difference that made. The gym itself was very queer and trans friendly, so no one gave James a hard time. On the contrary, the first time James used the men’s locker room a regular smiled at James in a ‘good for you’ sort of way.

—

Will and James were both home having dinner with Karen and Jack when the doorbell rang and two burly delivery men wheeled a crate into the middle of their living room. It was addressed to James, but Will was the one who signed for it as James inspected the crate for evidence of what was inside as Karen simultaneously hit on and berated the delivery men. When they’d left Karen turned to James and said, “So, are you going to open your present?”

“My present?” James asked, bewildered by Karen’s unprompted generosity.

“Of course honey.”

“For what?” he asked suspiciously, his brow furrowing.

“Just you being you,” Karen said airily before conjuring a crowbar more-or-less out of mid-air and giving it to James, “Open it! Open it!”

Jack joined in the chant until James began the process of prying off the top of the crate as Jack bounced near his elbow as Will hovered just slightly further away, determined to be more aloof in his curiosity.

Will was half-expecting some unearthly glow to come from within, but when at last they managed to get the top off the crate and peer inside, it was not the ark of the covenant or anything equally mythical contained within it.

It was a crate full of dicks.

Hard, soft, cut, uncut, packers, strap-ons, prosthetics, stp devices, all in a variety of skin tones and sizes. From the few times he and James had ended up researching the available options, Will knew that there were thousands of dollars of cocks sitting in the middle of their living room.

“I didn’t know which kind you’d like,” Karen explained jovially, as if that explained anything, “So I had Rosario order one of everything.”

“Karen,” James said before trailing off, whether overwhelmed by the gesture or the sheer quantity of dicks in his possession Will couldn’t say, “You didn’t need to do this.”

“Sure I did honey,” Karen said, like it was obvious, “Can’t have you searching every dick option under the sun at work forever, now can we?” She laughed and raised her glass to James, who looked mortified, but by the time Karen had finished her drink he’d composed himself enough to say thank you.

—

The next morning James shuffled out from his room and poured himself some coffee before he sat down with Will and Jack at the table and casually said, “There are 389 dicks in my room,”

Will didn’t look up from his paper, “Lucky.”

“388,” Jack corrected, "I borrowed one."

Will and James didn’t have to catch each others’ eye to speak in unison: “Keep it.”

—

James was sitting on the couch staring at the syringe and small vial in front of him when Will came home from the gym and hung up his coat and asked if they were still on for seeing a movie in a single moment. When James only half-heartedly returned his greeting without looking up Will checked in with him, “Hey sweetie, you okay? How was the big day?”

“Fine,” James said.

“And?!” Will said, full of anticipation of James’ excitement at finally starting testosterone, despite his current lack of enthusiasm.

James was still looking at prescription in front of him, “I’m afraid of needles.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Yeah,” James said, “And there’s some kind of shortage on the testosterone gel, so I wouldn’t be able to start until next month if I wait for the kind I don’t have to stab into my own body using a sharp object. And I want to start T, but I also-”

“Don’t want to stab yourself with a needle,” Will finished for him.

“We’re going to be late for the movie,” James said a few moments later, “And there’s no way I’ll build up enough courage to do this and still have time to make the 9:30.”

“You sure?” Will asked, not reaching for his coat, “Cause we can always see it tomorrow.”

“I’m sure,” James said, “Tomorrow. I’ll start T tomorrow.”

—

James had left for work early, so Will didn’t have time to check in with him, though he was pretty sure he wouldn’t have injected the testosterone first thing in the morning without yelling in either fear or triumph, and since Will hadn’t heard anything, he could only assume it hadn’t happened.

Will watched a few videos of trans guys injecting their T shots while describing all of the steps, and then after a few basic searches dropped by a community centre after work. When he got home that night and once again found James holding vigil over the testosterone vial he had barely said hello when James said, “I’m going to do it. Any minute now…”

“I spent the day learning how to inject testosterone- the men at Rainbow Room are super helpful by the way- I could do it for you,” Will offered, “If you want.”

James threw back his head in relief, “Oh thank god! I was getting nowhere here.”

Will smiled at him before sitting down beside him on the couch. Together they spent the next few minutes going over the process, what would happen when, what they would need, what each of of them were responsible for (James was responsible for picking which funky band-aid he wanted to use, Will was responsible for everything else), and then Will started to prepare the needle for real.

Will had carefully sterilized the area on James’ thigh before James really started to panic and tense up, which they both considered a huge win as it was much later than either of them had expected.

“Hey James,” Will said, prepped needle in hand, “You’re going to start T today.”

“I’m going to start T today,” James repeated, and then again, this time with a huge grin spreading across his face, “I’m going to start T today!”

“Ready?” Will asked.

James nodded, “Yes.”

—

Karen joked about James finally morphing into the man of Will’s dreams at least twice a week and both Will and James dismissed it with a laugh each and every time.

—

“I brought James a happy one month on testosterone present,” Jack said as he burst into Will’s apartment with a large box in his hands, “Is he here?”

“Why,” Will asked, “Because it’s longer than any of your relationships?”

“Ha. Ha,” Jack scowled, “For your information, Trevor and I were in a deeply committed relationship for a fortnight.”

“A fortnight is two weeks Jack.”

‘Shut up Will! I have a gift for James. Is he here?”

“No, he’s still at work.”

“Fine. Just give him this when he gets back.”

The box didn’t have a lid on it, so when Jack pressed the box unceremoniously into WIll’s arms he could see what was inside, “This is just a box of gay porn.”

“Yeah,” Jack said sharply, “Like I said, It’s a happy one month on testosterone gift.” He said it like this was the socially agreed upon traditional gift for this occasion.

“A box of gay porn,” Will said flatly.

“Yeah. God Will, our friend James has just launched himself into puberty. We need to be considerate of his needs.”

James didn’t get home until about an hour later, but when he did Will looked up from the book he was reading to tell him that Jack had dropped off a gift celebrating his one month on testosterone. When James made an interested noise Will called out to him, “But don’t get too excited. It’s just a box of gay porn.”

“Where is it?! Where did you put it? Is this it?” James asked at breakneck speed as he jogged around the couch zeroing in on the box resting on the coffee table and picking it up without breaking stride before heading off towards his bedroom, “This is it. That’s so nice of Jack. Thank him for me, will you?”

“He lives across the hall. Thank him yourself,” Will told his once again empty living room to the sound of James’ bedroom door closing behind him.

—

When Will caught a glimpse of James as he pulled his shirt over his binder and he felt a jolt of something. Something Will would rather not examine too closely, but something nonetheless.

—

Will taught James how to shave his face, the two of them side by side in front of the mirror with matching shaving cream beards late one Saturday morning. The music was playing and they were both grooving along and by the time they were both clean-shaven they were both sporting evidence of a shaving cream fight (Will in his hair, James on his nose) and they were both laughing so hard that James’ voice cracked, which only made them laugh harder.

—

James saw through Will’s lies about his awful day being somewhat tolerable and launched straight into emergency cheer up maneuvers, even though Will insisted they wouldn’t work. But soon they were dancing their way around the living room and things were quite a lot less terrible.

—

James was running around the apartment freaking out about a meeting and Will was talking him down, telling him which tie to wear, and it was such a familiar routine that he gave James a good luck kiss before he sent him on his way without even thinking about it.

And he’d kissed James countless times before, their friendship had always had quite a lot of physical affection built into it, but this time… well, it was not like every other kiss they’d shared, but Will couldn’t tell if the kiss was objectively any different than the hundreds of kisses they’d shared over the years. Mechanically, it must have been almost identical he rationalized to himself. A quick peck on the lips, nothing more. But it certainly felt different to him.

—

“You live with you ex-boyfriend?!” Will’s date Brad exclaimed, his eyebrows shooting up.

“Technically yes,” Will said, “But it’s a long story.”

“Give me the short version.”

“We dated for a little while in college, it didn’t work out, we’ve been friends since,” Will said breezily. He’d gotten better at telling this story in its absolute shortest format.

“I could never live with one of my exes,” Brad said thoughtfully, “It’d be too weird.”

Will shrugged, “It’s not weird for us.”

—

“Ugh,” James groaned from the couch, “I’m so horny.”

Will felt his face scrunch up in reaction to the TMI this early in the morning, “So go… you know…”

“I did,” James said with the air of someone whose suffering would be written of in epic poems and told to future generations, “Twice. But I’m still sooooo horny.”

“Ah puberty,” Will said fondly, “How I don’t miss thee.”

“Shut up,” James moaned, “Can’t you see I’m dying here?”

“You can’t die from horniness James.”

“You would know,” James fired back.

“What does that even mean?”

“You know. Because… because,” James was grasping at straws and he knew it, “Shut up Will. How about some sympathy here? You were 16 once.”

“When I was 16 I was desperately trying to jerk off to Playboys without my mind wandering to Rob Lowe in The Outsiders,” Will said matter-of-factly.

“Musta been tough,” James said thoughtfully, “Sodapop was a dreamboat.”

“Mhmm,” Will nodded, “So embrace the onslaught of hormones and enjoy getting to jerk off to gay porn without an ongoing denial-filled shame spiral.”

“You’re right Will,” James said, clearly inspired, “After all, I’ll only go through puberty for a second time once!”

“That’s the spirit!”

“I will jerk off to gay porn as much as I damn well please!”

“Attaboy!”

“And you should too!” James finished, looking at Will and clearly expecting him to be as fired up as he was.

“Right now?” Will said, instantly dropping out of cheerleader mode.

“C’mon Will. For that sixteen year old version of yourself trying to be attracted to boobs. You owe him this much!”

“James I-“

“I’ll let you keep the magazines you keep ‘borrowing’ from me that you think I haven’t noticed,” James said enticingly.

“I guess I do owe it to him….”

—

No one called James “she” anymore. It had been months since anyone assumed they were a straight couple and neither Will or James missed any part of that. James got “sir”ed by strangers consistently, and straight men and lesbians didn’t hit on him anymore. Gay men did.

—

Will was absolutely not jealous at all when James stumbled out to breakfast with a hot guy in tow after a night out at the clubs with Jack. His name was Nicolas and he grabbed a bagel after introducing himself before kissing James goodbye and heading off to wherever he was going.

And Will wasn’t jealous. He wasn’t jealous of James for bringing home a cute guy when Will hadn’t… well let’s just say it had been a while. Okay maybe he was a little jealous of James. But Will definitely wasn’t jealous of Nicolas. Nope. No way. Not at all.

—

It had been five days since top surgery and James was in full t-rex mode, unable to lift his arms up, unable to pull a shirt over his head. Will took two weeks off work to take care of him. James was fine, he just needed to rest while he healed, but Will liked being with him all the same. And besides, he was needed. Will had already had to run out to buy two additional packages of bendy straws, which keep disappearing (Will theorized that James was eating them when he wasn’t looking), and they’d already watched all the movies they’d assumed would last them a week in two and a half days.

Two days later the bandages came off and they both got to look at James’ new chest for the first time. James was so happy he cried.

—

A month after surgery Jack took them all out to celebrate, which meant he took them to the biggest gay club in the city and made Will pay the cover. It was Saturday night so the place was packed, the music loud enough to be just this side of painful, in short, it was the kind of place that Will could totally hate but he was strangely unperturbed by all of the things that would usually annoy him. He and James danced under the strobe lights and the artificial fog, playfully pulling each other closer and closer as the night went on. The tight black v-neck James was wearing showed off his glorious new flat chest and it rode up a bit when he lifted his arms above his head without wincing, grinning at Will as he did before leaning in to shout over the music, “Check it out! I’m no longer a dinosaur Will!”

It was a good night.

—

The scars on James’ chest were beautiful. James was a little self-conscious about them, at least around other people, but Will loved them.

—

James was packing tonight and Will hated that he could tell, because that was 100% James’ business and 0% his, but like…. he could tell. James walked just a little bit different when he did… and the sweatpants James was wearing left very little to the imagination in that regard and fuck that was such a turn on. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Fuck.

—

Will picked up a guy at the aquarium of all places and then accidentally called him James as they were making out and immediately tried to forget it ever happened.

—

They were both a little buzzed, having spent the evening with Jack and Karen and the ample amount of booze Karen had provided.

“All those years,” James said thoughtfully, “Everyone was all ‘too bad Will isn’t straight’. No one ever bothered with ‘too bad Grace isn’t a gay guy’.”

“Well,” Will said to stall for time because there was a weird feeling in his chest he didn’t want to acknowledge, “You showed them.”

—

They’ve kissed hundreds of times before, but now every time felt notable. So notable that Will didn’t initiate any of them anymore, because when he even maybe thought to kiss James hello or goodbye or whatever he found himself overthinking to the point of paralysis long before he got anywhere near him. He wondered if James noticed this shift, however slight, in their friendship.

Will often found himself thinking about kissing James good morning or goodbye or just kissing him for no reason at all and he found these ideas all strangely fascinating. He was glad James couldn’t tell how interesting an idea Will found this, and was also grateful that James would still drop a swift kiss on Will like he used to, as if nothing at all had changed between them.

Because nothing had changed between them, Will forcefully reminded himself as his heart leapt without his consent every single time James kissed him like the best friends they were.

—

James dressed up as a cowboy for Halloween and Will was going out of his mind. He was honestly afraid he might just drop dead at any moment because James was walking around dressed as Will’s own personal fantasy come to life and on some level he had to know? James had to know, didn’t he?

—

Will sat the fuck down to try and figure everything out when he was home alone so James wasn’t there to distract him. He felt guilty for finding James attractive (he was long past the point of denial of this fact), because before… before he knew James was James he wasn’t attracted to him. Lord knew he tried to be attracted to him back when he was young and closeted, but now… Well. James was growing into the man he was, the person he wanted to be, and there was no denying that testosterone agreed with him. If Will saw James in a bar he’d nudge Jack to make sure Jack didn’t rush over and hit on him first. James was cute. Full stop. Will had accepted that. It was all the other stuff that was eating him alive.

Like, you know, all-consuming terror. Because he loved James. He loved James before he transitioned and he loved him now. But now for the first time he might _like_ James, and that complicated matters. Because. Well, because it was James. And their friendship was so important, maybe the most stable part of his whole life, and also he honestly didn’t know if ‘I’m super attracted to you now, you know, after you transitioned, and we both know I wasn’t before’ was transphobic or insulting or both or something else (?????) , but he felt guilty anyway just in case.

Because James was cute. And his best friend. And his roommate. And it was complicated.

—

It had been a week since Will had sat down alone with his thoughts to put an end to this nonsense and Will was running circles in his own head, his train of thought running on tracks designed by a toddler or maybe even Jack. No matter how it started, he ended up in a weird figure eight loop of finding James attractive and then wondering if that made him transphobic or a bad person to be finding him attractive now and not three years, five years, fifteen years ago which felt like an unfair standard to be holding himself to (though that’d never stopped him before). If James hadn’t known he was a guy at the time, Will certainly couldn’t have known. So, he ended up settling on it being mostly okay that he found James attractive now. And by mostly okay he meant potentially catastrophic. James was his best friend, his very best, most precious relationship, and he was terrified that something stupid like his feelings could ruin that.

Hell, they were roommates. That alone was reason not to… do anything. At all. Ever.

But still he kept noticing things… Things like that James was filling out his dress shirts nicely. His laugh was the same one Will had always loved, but it was deeper now. And he was not admitting that James had made some guest appearances in Will’s dreams of late, but he had and Will wasn’t complaining, it was just that he woke up with a sinking feeling in his stomach after each one.

So Will resolved himself to go through the rest of his life torn between the 99% of him that was in a state of pure terror at the idea of ruining the most solid relationship in his life and the 1% of him filled with hope and possibilities. That 1% of him felt the need to remind him that the reason they broke up when he was 19 was no longer a barrier. Will was a gay man. James was too. Problem solved.

But now there were so many other problems.

—

“What was that?” James asked when he noticed Will flinch away from James’ touch as they were settling in for a much deserved Keanu marathon Friday night.

“What was what?” Will asked sounding as baffled as he could as he covered for his unfortunate movement by leaping to his feet as if he was just on his way to grab snacks.

“Don’t play stupid with me, Flinchy McGee,” James accused, “You’ve been acting weird lately.”

“No I haven’t,” Will protested too fast and too high pitched to sell it.

“You have,” James said, crossing his arms, his biceps looking distractingly good under the NYU shirt he had borrowed from Will, which wasn’t helping Will stay focused on the minefield of a conversation they were about to have because a cute guy wearing his clothes had always been a major turn on for him.

“Will,” James said seriously, “I know it’s still a lot to get used to. But I’m still me. We’re still us.”

“It’s not that,” Will said, surrendering to the conversation like a man about to walk the plank.

“It’s not?”

“No, I mean… It’s….” Will squirmed, but James just waited for him to finish the thought, “It’s just… Now you’re this cute guy with a great laugh who borrows my clothes and wanders around the apartment without a shirt on and it’s all just… very distracting.”

James grinned, “You think I’m cute.”

Will crossed his arms, “Well you are.”

“You’re cute when you’re blushing over finding me cute,” James teased.

“Stop it. This is serious! How did you deal with this, back when you were, you know…”

“When I was in love with you and you were gay and I thought I was a woman?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t talk to you for a year. And after I had gotten over you we were able to build a friendship based on who we really were.”

“See, I don’t think that’s going to work this time,” Will said as rationally as he could, “We live together. I can’t exactly avoid you for a year.”

“Well, maybe if we-“

“We’re not adding a pizza oven to your bedroom,” Will said flatly, beating James to the punchline.

“Fine,” James said, disproportionately put out for having a suggestion that would never happen shot down, but then he smiled and pat the space beside him on the small couch in front of the TV and Will sat back down beside him, this time making sure to hold appropriately still when James pulled the blanket up over them both. When they were both settled James pushed play.

Point Break had barely started when James quietly said, “Will?”

“Yeah James?”

Will could feel James watching at him instead of the movie and Will turned away from the rush of waves to look back at him. James reached out from under the blanket, his fingers skimming Will’s jawline as he leaned in enough to kiss him on the lips. The kiss was soft and reassuring, as comforting as the blanket over their bodies and the movie they’d seen twenty times running in the background. And again, Will was aware that the mechanics of this kiss were the same as the ones they had been exchanging for over 15 years, but that didn’t stop his heart from pounding when it happened.

James pulled back enough to break the kiss but didn’t look away from him, “We’ll figure the rest out as we go, okay?”

Will’s brain, which had launched into no less than 48 separate crisis modes at the start of this conversation had settled into a strange calm, “Okay.”

Together they returned their attention to the movie as a rain-soaked Keanu Reeves as Johnny Utah turned to camera and gave them a thumbs up.


End file.
